sex and politics

Borut Pahor - the new PM? (source)

According to exit polls both by POP TV and RTVSLO, opposition Social Democrats won today’s parliamentary elections in Slovenia. They have won around 32 percent of the poll, with Janez Janša’s SDS coming in second with 28 percent.

Zares took third spot with 11 percent, DeSUS (pensioner’s party) 7,5 while SNS (nationalists) and LDS both won five percent. SLS and NSi (right wing coalition parties) did not make it above the 4% treshold, and neither did Lipa and KDS. For the moment it appears that SD, Zares and LDS will form the new government with Borut Pahor as the new PM, but it remains to be seen whether they can do it by themselves or will they need DeSUS’s votes to do it.

More at around 2200 CET, after pengovsky files reports for The Firm™

EDIT @ 0040hrs: Two hours late, but it was a long night (still is, btw). According to the results of the National Electoral Commission, the final results will be much closer than anticipated by the exit polls. With most of the vote (99.97 %) counted, Borut Pahor’s SD got 30.50 percent. while Janez Janša’s SDS got 29.31 percent. Janez Janša has so far refused to concede, extending only a “conditional congratulations” to Borut Pahor (Janša: “insofar as the exit poll results are valid”), while the latter refused to declare an outright victory.

Nevertheless it is clear that the left bloc won, however, it remains to be seen how many seats in the parliament each party will take. There is a mathematical possibility that both SD and SDS will equal number of seats, creating an interesting situation as to who will get a mandate to form government. To be more precise, since equal number of seats would put Janša and Pahor in a fairly equal position, it would be interesting to see what kind of an offer would Janez Janša be prepared to make to secure a majortiy in the parliament and retain the prime-ministerial post

However, a split in the trio of SD-Zares-LDS seems improbable at this juncture, not in the least because a lof of effort was put into making the three leaders say that they will not form a coalition with Janša. But this severly limits their options and sending political stock of DeSUS sky-high. Namely - the way things stand, the trio has 43 seats in the parliament, three shy of a minimal majoriy, which means that they have to take onbooard either DeSUS or SLS, which only barely made it above the 4 percent threshold. Both parties were members of Janša’s coalition, but the way things stand now, DeSUS has a much better chance of becoming a part of the new coalition. Although I kind of doubt it that Karel Erjavec will keep the post of defence minister

And while we’re on the subject: It seems Dimitrij Rupel finally met his political demise. He was not elected into the parliament and has little chance of becoming a foreign minister yet again. Janez Podobnik and Bojan Šrot of SLS met the same fate, with Podobnik facing a much more uncertain future, since Šrot is still serving as mayor of Celje and thus retains some political leverage. Also, Andrej Bajuk of NSi and Sašo Peče of Lipa didn’t make the cut and bought a ticket on the fast train to the political Big Adios. What will become of their parties remains to be seen, but things are looking rather bleak at the moment.

This is the last in the series of pre-election posts. Tommorow is skin day and barring any breaking news I will post again on Sunday around 1900 CET when exit polls will be published.

And exit polls will probably be the weakest link in this year’s elections. There will probably be a couple of exit polls, but those done by both TV networks (RTVSLO and POPTV) will be the most important. Given the fact that RTVSLO’s exit polls will be done by Interstat which has a record of publishing figures favouring the government (hey, it is a state television, right?), it is entirely possible that exit polls will give us two different results, with RTVSLO claiming a relative victory of SDS while POPTV claimed a victory of SD.

I’m not saying it will happen. I’m saying it could happen.

Indeed, the fact that the two largest parties, SDS and SD are so close to each other (that is, they were when the last polls were published), could ultimately lead to contesting the election results altogether - especially by SDS, should it end up in second place. Given the fact that all bets are off and that the campaign was brutal, neither of the two parties is likely to put on a chivalrous performance and admit defeat immediately. This can turn ugly

Again. I’m not saying it will happen. But the closer the result between SDS and SD, the better the chances of something like that happening.

To go on. It is quite possible that overseas ballots will decide the final outcome, clinching a victory for SDS. This will not go down lightly with the left bloc since the government seems to have used data on overseas voters to have SDS and NSi election material sent to them (as reported by From Buffalo With Love and Michael N) Whether or not this constitutes abuse is a matter of some debate, but the left bloc will go apeshit if the “diaspora” decides the elections.

And finally, it is entirely possible (although hopefully highly improbable) that some bright political soul flips because it didn’t get as much votes as projected and starts questioning the legitimacy of elections themselves. This would be the worst-case scenario, because it can very easily spiral out of control.

P.S.: Prime Minister Janez Janša turned 50 yesterday. Happy birthday!

Mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Janković has finally publicly declared his voting preference for Sunday’s elections - he supports the entire Trio From The Left Bloc that is LDS, SD and ZARES.

Video stills from video by Denis Sarkić, vest.si (source)

His decision is actually not surprising at all. Many were hoping that he would support only one party, giving it an extra boost. No such luck. He said that he sees Borut Pahor, Katarina Kresal and Gregor Golobič as equally capable of leading the country and that it is the mix of their political platforms which is what Slovenia needs right now and he asked citizens of Ljubljana no vote for one of three parties and against Janez Janša and the ruling coalition. Which sounds a bit like re-inventing hot water.

It should be noted, however, that there is one notable exception to Janković’s prefferences: DeSUS - the pensioners’ party. Its president Karel Erjavec namely did not promise Zoran Janković that DeSUS will not enter the coalition with Janša, which seems rahter prudent, since they are poised to play the role of kingmaker and could see a lot of political favours thrown their way. But should they opt to support the political left (which- according to their platform - is their natural enviroment) then the profile of the future government would be all but set. But this is not yet the case.

What is interesting, however, is the awe with which the three parties have looked up to Zoran Janković. The parties were almost competing in which will get a more solid support by the mayor of Slovenia’s capital, as if it were up to him who will win and who will lose. Naturally, it is not up to him (thankfuly) but his peculiar political style, which is an explosive mix of arrogance, naivette, shrewdness, self promotion and political ideals (I am fully aware of the contradictions here, thank you very much) seems to resound well with people far beyond Ljubljana borders. He has a can-do mentality and the people seem to like that, despite the fact that he still somewhat of a political rookie. Or - perhaps - precisely because of that.

In related news, however, former President Milan Kučan said publicly that he will support Social Democrats. This is good news for Borut Pahor, since Kučan is still widely respected and reveered all across Slovenia.

Tommorow: what could go wrong on election day